


Metamorphagmus Disadvantages

by KillianJones32



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU: Teddy's hair changes with his emotions, Closer Age Gap - Only two years apart, Harry Potter Next Generation, Hogwarts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 02:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillianJones32/pseuds/KillianJones32
Summary: Teddy's hair is linked to his emotions and it just so happens that ever since the summer before seventh year, his hair has turned pink around James and Teddy knows that pink hair means he's romantically attracted to someone. In this case it's James Sirius Potter.





	Metamorphagmus Disadvantages

Being a metamorphmagus was something that Teddy honestly loved about himself.

As a child he loved changing his face into animal faces like a duck’s or one time he even gave himself a giraffe neck and almost stuck his head through Harry’s kitchen ceiling.

Once he got to Hogwarts he would impress his dorm-mates by showing them how he could make his fingers any length he wanted and how he could make himself taller than the others and make his voice deeper, managing to make his friends ever so slightly jealous but also intrigued.

It made him likeable but Ginny always said it wasn’t being a metamorphous that made him special, it was the things he chose to do with it.

Like turning into Professor McGonagall and pretending to give a lecture just to make a first year Slytherin laugh after she’d been crying, it was turning into Harry and telling Granddad Weasley made up facts about the muggle world until he was caught.

Harry once told him that Teddy used his gift that his mother gave him to continue his father’s legacy and that was what Teddy loved the most about himself. How he was equally both of them, even if he had never met them.

But unfortunately his gift had a price.

He could change anything about his body just by thinking of it except for his hair on his head. 

For some crazy reason, his head hair was controlled to his emotions; well there was some actual logic behind it as other metaphorphmaguses had the same condition, apparently Hermione and Percy had researched it when he was a child but Teddy didn’t really care why it happened, he just wanted it to stop but unfortunately there was no way of doing so.

He’d tried dyeing it in third year after he was left mortified when his hair turned a shade of pink when he saw a sixth year boy shirtless in the quidditch locker room.

Pink he realised on that day meant he had a crush and that wasn’t good because now everyone could tell he had a crush on someone.

However dyeing it didn’t make one bit of difference, he’d walked down from his dorm with his newly dyed brown hair and the second his friend laughed and made a comment about what happened in the locker room, his hair turned orange, orange which was for embarrassment.

For about a year and a half after that Teddy decided to just not have crushes on people but that turned out to be rather difficult being a bisexual teenager surrounded by attractive people every day at Hogwarts.

The worst part of it was when he started dating and a few times even though he and the other person said they were casual, Teddy could tell the other felt hurt whenever their eyes flitted up to his hair and it was blonde for friendship or fondness and not pink.

So after that he decided beanies and hats would become his new best friends. He’s seen a few photos of his dad wearing hats and found a few of his old ones. His mum had a few eccentric ones too so he wore those on his rebellious days but he preferred his dad’s old beanies because they covered all of his hair.

He started taking them off during the breaks though ever since he came home for the summer holidays and saw Harry’s worried frown at the train station.

That was an embarrassing conversation in which Teddy had to insist he wasn’t ashamed of who he was, he just didn’t like the whole world being able to tell what he felt at any moment.

But Teddy knew it worried Andromeda and Harry slightly though they tried their best not to show it and realistically it was rather stupid wearing beanies during the summer holidays so he didn’t wear them outside of Hogwarts.

But everything changed during his seventh year and the summer before it started.

That summer he’d spent a lot of the time with Andromeda and weeks here or there with the Potters and Weasleys. He loves all the Weasley cousins and thankfully several are in Hogwarts now so they’re all really close.

He’s always been the closest with Victoire though as she’s only a year younger than him but there was never anything romantic between them, the only small moment they had was at King’s Cross at the beginning of seventh year when he kissed her to make her ex jealous and they laughed about it afterwards.

Once he’d calmed down enough and looked around to see if the ex saw their kiss, he was at first happy on Vic’s behalf that he did but instantly he felt his heart plummet to his stomach when he saw James staring at them with wide eyes.

James Sirius Potter, Victoire’s cousin who was starting his fifth year that year.

James who Teddy had spent the summer laughing with, playing pranks on James’s cousins with and talking about everything with.

Because Victoire was great but Teddy just always felt he and James could talk about anything with each other.

In that moment James and Teddy looked at each other for what felt like eternity, Teddy saw hurt in James’s eyes and put that down to James thinking Teddy liked Victoire, maybe that they were even dating and that he’d never told him, even though they’d sworn that summer that they’d told each other everything.

Teddy takes a step forward, forgetting about Victoire beside him, wanting to talk to James, explain himself and the situation, anything to rid himself of the tightening knot of guilt in his stomach.

James merely shook his head, turned and ran from him to where his family were standing around Lily who was starting her first year at Hogwarts this year. 

Teddy swallowed down his feelings and forced himself to turn back to Victoire and smile, pretending he’d been listening to her words of gratitude.

Teddy was Head Boy this year so thankfully he was too busy giving talks to the prefects and organising patrol schedules on the train to think about James’s heartbreakingly sad brown eyes but once the feast started and James ignored Teddy’s silent invitation to sit beside him, Teddy couldn’t stop thinking about them.

While the first years hurried up the steps one by one to be sorted and as the headmistress and the sorting hat gave their speeches, Teddy thought about the times he spent with James that summer.

He thought about all their late nights on the roof of the Potter’s house under the stars.

He lets himself remember the one talk in particular that he’s been trying to forget all summer.

The night when he told James more about the loneliness he feels without his parents than he could ever dream of telling Harry or Andromeda.

He remembers James repaying in kind, revealing how he hates how people look at him as the son of the Boy Who Lived and one of the greatest chasers the Holyhead Harpies ever had and how he sees himself as a disappointment because he struggles to pass his classes and can’t play quidditch if his life depended on it.

Teddy had looked at him and reassured him that he was the farthest thing from a disappointment and that he was so proud of him and he knew Harry and Ginny were too.

James had smiled, that dazzling white bright smile of his and Teddy had felt his stomach clench but not in a bad way, instead it was in a weirdly happy way.

He didn’t understand it until a second later when James’s eyes flickered up to his hair and he whispered into the night, “Why is your hair pink? What does that mean?”

Teddy’s eyes had widened in horror, he’d given some feeble excuse that he couldn’t even remember now and soon insisted he was tired and they should go to bed.

The next morning Teddy came down to the kitchen in a baseball cap and wore one for every day that summer regardless of what the others said.

After every conversation Teddy had with James, or after James so much as smiled at him, Teddy would find the nearest mirror, close the door and take off his hat and sure enough his hair would be pink.

But over the summer the pinkness turned into a light red shade and Teddy knew what that meant, he didn’t even need to look it up in one of Hermione’s books.

He knew it stood for romantic love.

And that was something Teddy really couldn’t handle in his final year of Hogwarts.

But then James had looked at him with those wide, sad eyes and he just wants to run over to the Gryffindor table and tell James that the kiss didn’t mean anything, not that James would care who he kissed but still he has a right to know.

Teddy wants to find James after the feast more than anything but he has to lead the first years back to the dorms, give them the usual speech and give everyone in Hufflepuff house the password so he doesn’t get a chance to talk to him.

The following two weeks are extremely busy too; he has to manage his own timetable while helping out the first years and balancing his patrol schedule and tutoring group at the same time so he rarely gets to talk to his friends in his dorm let alone his cousin in another year and house.

But in the middle of the last week of September, Teddy decides he has to try so he goes out of his way to see James, learning his timetable and waiting outside his last class, eating near him at the Gryffindor table at the feasts, thankfully inter-house unity is common now so this is normal but whenever Teddy approaches James, he won’t even look at him let alone talk to him.

James just skilfully avoids eye contact and talks to someone beside him or walks in the other direction and every single time Teddy’s pace falters and he doesn’t need to take his hat off to know that his hair has turned blue.

James succeeds in his avoidance techniques until the end of October but it’s not Teddy or James that brings this to an end, instead its Emma Bones, the sixth year prefect of Gryffindor house who Teddy used to tutor last year for her OWLs 

It’s at the end of their second prefect meeting when she lingers behind and asks to talk to him.

“Look I wasn’t going to say anything but I thought you’d want to know because I know how close you two are.” Emma starts, her eyebrows are drawn together but her eyes stare fiercely at him.

Teddy smiles and tries not to be worried, “What’s going on Em?”

“It’s probably not a big deal but it’s about James.”

Teddy frowns and stops packing his stuff away, focusing his full attention on her now.

“James? Is everything okay with him?”

“Yes everything’s fine, he’s just been getting into a bit of trouble recently. And I know that’s something you or me or any of those cousins are partial too but” Emma sighs,

“I don’t know it seems off, he’s doing stupid things like staying out late in stupid areas where he’d surely know we’d catch him on patrol. I think he’s been giving back cheek to teachers which isn’t really like him, he’ll banter with them but he never disrespects them so that’s why this is so unusual and he just seems so angry all the time. He’s gotten five detentions already and a letter’s going to be written home soon if it hasn’t already so I just thought…maybe if you could talk to him then he might settle down a bit?”

Teddy blinks twice, frozen in place and unsure of what to say.

Emma is right, Teddy can certainly be rebellious at times, and he was definitely partial to sneaking out here and there when he was in James’s year or even when he was younger but being disrespectful to teachers is another thing and as for being angry a lot, that’s definitely not who James is.

“I’ll talk to him” Teddy says eventually, “I will and thank you, I appreciate you telling me this, I really do Em.”

Emma smiles and nods before slipping out of the room and leaving Teddy alone with his thoughts.

The next morning is thankfully a Saturday and when he goes down to the Great Hall for breakfast he’s glad to see that James is there already, slowly eating his eggs and bacon like every other tired student who managed to drag themselves out of bed for breakfast.

Teddy sits beside Victoire at the Ravenclaw table and makes small chit-chat with her as he quickly eats some cereal and all the while he notices James’s eyes on him. He wonders how long James has been secretly watching him and why he won’t just talk to him or at least let Teddy talk to him.

From the corner of his eye, Teddy later catches James standing up to leave and Teddy knows that he needs to talk to him right now or he mightn’t get another chance so he politely excuses himself from the table and follows James out of the room.

He waits until they’ve both left the Entrance Hall to slide into step beside him and it’s rather fortunate that there’s nobody else around for James to talk to or anywhere James can run off to this morning.

“We need to talk” Teddy tells him softly.

James lets out a long breath that Teddy can’t differentiate between a sigh and a huff,

“Look I’ve lots of studying to do so if you don’t mind I’d rather-“

“James come on” Teddy says, coming to a halt and putting a gentle hand on James’s arm, causing him to stop too and face him, “What’s going on? You haven’t talked to me at all since we started term and I…I miss talking to you, can’t you just spare five minutes? Please?”

James finally meets his eyes and his eyes are a mixture of emotions, ranging from guarded, hurt and defiant, “Can’t you just go talk to Vic? You guys are dating now right so why-“

Teddy shakes his head clearly, “No we’re not.”

James stops talking and his mouth drops open, “What? What do you mean? Then why did you kiss her at King’s Cross?”

“She wanted to piss off that twat of an ex-boyfriend of hers.”

“The one that cheated on her?”

“Yes Jamie” Teddy says, a smile playing on his lips, “We’re definitely not together. I was just helping her out.”

“Oh” James says, his voice is soft and Teddy didn’t realise James’s shoulders were tensed until they drop and relax, “I didn’t…I didn’t know, the cousins, well they were all saying you were together.”

Teddy snorts, “I love Rose and Albus to pieces but how reliable are they for information, really?”

James laughs and Teddy forgot how much he missed that sound, “Yeah that’s true.”

Teddy smiles broadly now, “Look can we talk? Actually talk, please?”

James nods, “Yeah, yeah sure okay.”

They head down to the kitchens even though they just got food and spend an hour passing jokes back and forth while helping the house elves clean up from breakfast and then they sit side by side on a table, their shoulders touching and Teddy’s hair most definitely changing colour under his beanie.

“What’s going on with you?” Teddy asks softly

James’s eyes are focused on his fidgeting fingers that rest on his knees,

“Nothing, I’ve just been busy.”

“Jamie I’m head boy, I hear about all the kids getting in trouble, especially ones with five detentions for disrespecting teachers and getting caught after curfew.” 

James scoffs but there’s no meaning to it, “Like you never did it.”

“James I know you. If you wanted to really rebel, this wouldn’t be how you’d do it and if you wanted to sneak out at night you wouldn’t let yourself get caught! I know you’ve your dad’s cloak and the map your grandfather and my dad made. So what’s going on? Why do you keep purposely getting into trouble?”

Teddy watches the varying emotions flicker on James’s face as he stares at his fingers that have stopped fidgeting to rest on his lap.

“I…” James whispers “Do you remember our second night on my roof at home last summer?”

Teddy nods, the night he rarely lets himself think about, the night of revelations and stupid pink hair.

“Yeah of course I remember” Teddy replies, his voice just as quiet as James’s, “Why?”

“Afterwards, about a month later when you were back at your gran’s I…well I borrowed one of Uncle Percy’s books and I found the part on metamorphaguses and those whose head hair are connected to their emotions, it’d been bookmarked I think he’d used it when they realised you were one of them. I…well I looked up what it meant when they…when you have pink hair.”

Teddy felt his breath catch in his throat.

A hundred thoughts, worries, fears and hopes ran through his mind but the main thought screaming in his head right now was ‘shit, shit, shit, shit’.

He wants to apologise, to lie and make something up, anything that could possibly explain this situation. He racks his head to remember what he told that sixth year in the locker room all those years ago, at least if he said that, it would be something but he just can’t remember.

James still doesn’t meet his eyes but Teddy is shocked to see a small smile on his lips,

“I thought…well I thought at first that…well that meant you liked me, that you had a crush on me.”

The words, ‘you thought right’ linger on Teddy’s lips but Teddy can’t find a voice to speak them.

“But I wasn’t sure you know?” James continues his voice surprisingly casual for this conversation, “I thought you could have been thinking of someone else, you could have been daydreaming of someone completely different and that’s why you were so embarrassed when I pointed it out, it would explain the rubbish excuse you gave. So I was going to wait until you came back to see what your hair was like” He laughs, “I even studied and learned what each hair colour stood for, I mean most of them I knew of course but some I didn’t but anyway then you came back wearing that stupid baseball cap that you never took off, not even that time we went swimming in the lake! I wanted to ask about it but…I guess I was just afraid.”

“What were you afraid of?” Teddy finds himself asking, even though his words are barely audible

“That your hair turned pink for the realistic reason, you were thinking of someone else. I didn’t, I didn’t want to hear it because I’d liked you for so long. And then, well, then I saw you kissing Victoire and I knew you didn’t like me and that you liked someone else, her to be exact and I was…sad and angry even though I had no right to be. I did all those stupid things to get your attention, hoping one day it would be you who caught me on patrol. I couldn’t just talk to you like you wanted, anytime you approached me I just felt guilty or annoyed or hurt so I just avoided you and kept getting in trouble to catch your attention, maybe to get your attention more than Vic, it makes no sense I know that but I…I don’t know, I didn’t know what else to do.”

Teddy opens his mouth to say something but he knows if he tries to talk, all that will come out would be a squeal of joy that James liked him back. So instead he reaches up to his head with one hand and takes the Hufflepuff pride beanie off his head.

He doesn’t need to look into a mirror to know that right now his hair is a light shade of red.

James finally looks at him and when he sees Teddy’s hair, his beautiful brown eyes widen and his eyebrows rise to his hairline.

“You…red…that’s…”

“Romantic love” Teddy answers for him, unable to resist the grin spreading over his face, “I…James my hair turned pink that night because I liked you, I had a crush on you because you were open and honest with me and I liked that James, I liked the real James that you showed me that night. I swear I never liked Vic, I never told you I was falling for you that summer because I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable, we grew up together, your cousins see me as another cousin and I thought you saw me like that too so I said nothing. The last thing I wanted was to make you uncomfortable or to hurt you and I’m sorry I did.”

“I’m sorry too” James says, tearing his eyes away from Teddy’s hair to finally meet his eyes, “I should have come to you sooner, I should have talked to you whenever you tried to talk to me. I acted like a ridiculous child I know.”

Teddy smirks and lets himself kiss James’s forehead, “Maybe a small bit” and he laughs when James lightly hits his arm.

“I love you too, you know?”

Teddy does know that now but he can’t deny that his heart soars when he hears James say those words.

“Yeah I do”

James smiles that perfect wide toothy grin and hesitates only a minute before closing the space between them and kissing Teddy on the mouth.

It’s good for a first kiss, really good and it’s the best kiss Teddy has had in his entire life simply because it’s with James.

He knows there’s a lot they need to talk about and think about but for right now Teddy’s perfectly happy to keep kissing James on an old table in the Hogwarts kitchens and relish in the feel of James’s soft hand in his as their fingers intertwine.

One thing’s for certain though, Teddy’s not going to be wearing any hat, beanie or baseball cap for the next while, not if this is the reaction he gets from James at seeing his hair.

Maybe having hair that was attached to emotions wasn’t as bad as Teddy originally thought.


End file.
